LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

CliapA.?___ Copyright No. 

Shelf..d'-25r C ^ 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



CATHARINE COLE'S BOOK 



h - 

CATHARINE COLE'S 
BOOK 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
bv 

M.E. M. DAVIS 




M 



I ,{^ 



'^^. I 



CHICAGO 

A. C. McCLURG & COMPANY 

1897 






COPYRIGHT 
BY HORACE FLETCHER j/t^ ' 
A. D. 1897 



INTRODUCTION. 



It is a shady, old-fashioned street — a ''green 
Cathedral aisle of untrimmed trees" — which leads 
from the wide city Boulevard to the ''brown 
shell of a house" where these Letters were writ- 
ten. The busy world races back and forth along 
the Boulevard, with an ever-increasing clatter of 
progress and prosperity, of pride and parade. 
The Street dozes, tranquil and unchanging, be- 
neath an over-arching sky which is as blue as the 
blue of a baby's eyes. The fences that border 
it are over-hung by tangled masses of climbing 
roses, and alder, and trumpet-vines — and there 
the birds sing, year in and year out. Nigger- 
heads — yellow, rank and saucy — blossom in the 
ditches ; grass grows along the brown wheel-ruts. 
The trees, with a fine disdain of man's inven- 
tions, have thrust out their mossy roots and un- 
settled the birches of the old sidewalks, so that 
the passer-by must needs walk warily. 

This is the Street. 

The high-porched house where Catharine Cole 
5 



6 INT ROD UC TION. 

lives, has, for a decade and a half of years, 
seemed somehow to be the Other End of the 
street; though in truth the flower-set way wan- 
ders on until it loses itself in the swamp. So 
many pilgrims have trod the broken sidewalks, 
seeking the brave, strong, sympathetic woman 
whose power to help and to comfort was bound- 
less! Youth, with elastic step and bounding 
heart, eager to clasp the Hand of the Magic Pen ; 
Age, downcast and wretched, longing for the 
never-withheld word of cheer; hither they came 

— the poor, the rich, the happy, the despairing 

— pilgrims, as to a shrine, travelers, as to a 
Place of Resto 

In this cosy, time-worn old house Mrs. Field 
may be said to have really begun her life-work. 
The young journalist, a widowed mother, and 
a breadwinner, had indeed gained a foothold else- 
where, but here were written those earnest and 
sympathetic letters which have so stirred and 
encouraged her fellow working-women; here 
were wrought into shape exquisite sketches, stor- 
ies, bits of rhyme, quaint silhouettes of life, Vv^on- 
derful descriptions of places and of people. 
From this ^'old brown house" she set forth upon 
her vagabond journeyings about the great world, 
carrying her readers with her, as Solomon, travel- 
ing from kingdom to kingdom through the air, 



INT ROD UC TION. 7 

carried his vast household upon his bit of a 
magic carpet. And hither she always returned, 
drawn by the invisible chords of home-love, as 
by the magnet of Solomon himself. 

This life-work of Martha Field (Catharine 
Cole) counted by years, has been comparatively 
brief. She was born in the picturesque old town 
of Lexington, Missouri. Her parents removed, 
in the early part of the sixties, to New Orleans. 
From her father, W. M. Smallwood, himself a 
talented journalist, she received her training for 
the profession which she adopted while still in 
the school-room. Her first newspaper work was 
done for the Nczu Orleans Republican. The 
growing ambition of the young girl led her, later, 
to California, where she secured a position on 
one of the SanFrancisco journals. Here she was 
married, and here, within a short time, she was 
left a widow with an infant daughter. She quit- 
ted at once the great city of the west, w^iose 
vivid warmth and color clung ever after to her 
pen, and returned to New Orleans to accept a 
position on 'the editorial staff of the Times, In 
1 88 1 she began that work for the Nezu Orleans 
Picayune^ which laid the real foundation for her 
constantly growing reputation, both as a journ- 
alist and as a literary worker of a high order. In 
an article written for the "Round Table of Lou- 



8 IXTRODUCTIOX. 

isiana Authors," ^Ir. Bernard Shields sa^'s of 
her: "In literary vrork Catharine Cole is some- 
thing of a dilletante; and whether the subject be 
of home, of art, of social life, of travel, or of 
politics, her pen is equally facile. Searching 
only for the truth, lauding what is good and de- 
nouncing wrong without fear or favor, her judg- 
ment is considered trustv.'orthy and reliable. 
Perhaps one of the best things that can be said 
of her writings is that by them and in them she 
has always upheld women. Her pen is always 
busy in their behalf. . . . The remarkable 
progress of the cause of womanhood in the past 
ten years has astonished the world and made it 
better. Its advancement, particularly in Lou- 
isiana, is due in no small degree to the work of 
Catharine Cole. . . . She has never lost an 
opportunity to wield her pen in behalf of her 
state; and no southern writer has done more to 
make known its resources and to advance the in- 
terests of its people. . . . To the influence 
of her pen and brain New Orleans owes its 
Training School for Nurses, its Woman's Ex- 
change, and its Kindergartens. She is said to 
know as much about the material resources of 
Louisiana as any one in the state. On foot, in 
a buggy, or by canoe, she has traveled over 
every inch of its territorial limits, sending back 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

to the journal she represents the most truthful 
and realistic reports of her travels. . . . She 
knows Europe by heart. . . . Her extensive 
travels, both abroad and in this country, have 
added largely to her rich fund of information, 
and her ramblings into the remotest corners 
of the world, . . . have given her a 
knowledge of men and things that strengthens 
her writings with assurance and masculine 
boldness; while her sensitive tenderness and 
sympathy with human suffering lend the 
charm of woman's pen that appeals to the 
heart." 

The same writer describes ]\Irs. Field person- 
ally as a ''rather slightly built woman with light 
brown hair, grayish blue eyes, topping a large 
nose and mouth, a soft, pleasant voice, and an 
unassuming quiet demeanor." 

In 1894 Catharine Cole became a member of 
the editorial staff of the New Orleans Times- 
Democrat. Her letters to that journal — from 
Switzerland, from England, from aboard ship in 
tropical seas — have sustained her brilliant repu- 
tation. 

But a singular pathos now attaches to the 
sketches written from the ''brown shell of a 
house" at the Other End of the Street. For the 
hand that has "knitted into the russet-colored 



1 I NT ROD UC TION. 

fabric" of so many lives, the ''golden threads of 
love and hope" has become well-nigh help- 
less. The spirit which has so faithfully wrought 
for the good of others is strong and ardent still ; 
the brain is clear and keen, but the flesh, in the 
grasp of pain, is weak, and the heart flutters 
wearily in a panting breast. 

Several years have passed since Catharine 
Cole was first stricken by a mortal, malady which 
has gradually sapped her abundant strength and 
left her a hopeless invalid. Bravely, calmly, 
quietly, staring death in the face, she has con- 
tinued to write ; those who know her know also 
that not until the pen drops forever from her 
nerveless fingers will she cease to speak her mes- 
sage of hope and cheer to the world. 

This volume made up from her work, has been 
prepared in the hope and v/ith the desire that it 
may aid in lifting the burden — a burden, alas, of 
poverty — which lies upon this brave and tender 
soul. 

It is sent forth confidently to the many who 
have known her face to face ; and to the many 
more who have never seen her, but who have 
been strengthened and helped by her wide-reach- 
ing influence. 

M. E. M. Davis. 



CONTENTS. 



•PAGE 

OVER THE HILLTOPS, -----.. 13 
QUEEN ANNE FRONTS AND MARY ANN BACKS, - 

A LITTLE GOOD-BY TO ARCADY, 

SPRING FEVER, ----- r - - 

THE MODERN TURK, - - 

THOUGHTS OF HAPPIER DAYS, - - - - . 

"CHARGE IT," 

OLD THINGS, . 

BABETTE, 

ON THE INSTALLMENT PLAN, 

ROSES OR REGRETS, 

PERFUMES OF PLACES, ----.. 

THE LADIES OF ROSEMARY, 

FOR rent: a THREE-ROOMED COTTAGE, - 

A LITTLE CHRISTMAS SERMON, 

THE SONG OF THE NEW YEAR, - • - - . 

TWO OLD BROWNIES, 

GIFTS OF ROSES, - - 

BY THE WINDOW, -----... 

HAVE WE GOOD MANNERS ? 

FOR COMMON-PLACE WOMEN, - - - . - 

DOUDOUCE'S MOTHERS, 

SIMPLE LIVING, ------., 

HOW TO SUCCEED AS A SOCIETY WOMAN, - 

NARROW LIVES, ----.... 

THAT KISS, - 

CIC'LY'S STORY, - 

OLD HOME LONGINGS, ...... 



OVER THE HILLTOPS. 



It is an epoch in life wherein we discover, as 
by an inspiration, the beauty or the grandeur or 
the goodness of any work or any thing. These 
flashHght revelations tearing across the sky of our 
night are our divine moments — our winged mo- 
ments. They come to us in successive stages and 
leave us finer, larger, wiser, better. They are the 
milestones along our real life — the indicators, 
pointing heartward, of our real growth. To have 
at any time this sudden sense of knowledge, to be 
Columbus to something of God's or man's creat- 
ing, is everything. A door once opened, giving 
us a look into another room hitherto locked 
against us, giving us a look into a garden where 
undreamed-of roses bloom, can never be truly 
closed for us again. We have seen into the be- 
yond, and we know. We can never unknow a 
thing. 

A little child sits in the sun playing, the 
winds blow sweet about her, and their Juney 
breath caresses her fair aureoled head. Her 
vibrant little voice thrills and buzzes somno- 
lently like the pleasant whirr of a humming bird's 
wings. Suddenly there floats in at the open 
window, riding a sunbeam down as if it were a 



14 OVER THE HILLTOPS. 

summer wave, a little silken, silvery-masted craft 
put afloat by some tethered plant. It is a this- 
tle-down swinging on the wind, silver-sheathed, 
stealthy, with a touch too fine to be tangible on 
the ruder fabric of our flesh. As it floats airily 
through space it falls across the wonder of the 
child's eyes. She gazes at it, with a mysterious 
rush of recognition and intuition fluttering her 
leashed and leaping soul. To her this is no com- 
mon thistle-down, but a fairy, a very Princess 
Fairy, dumb, roaming, and beautiful. Its coming 
was the needed but natural confirmation of the 
faith that is orthodox in Lilliput. Now all her 
beautiful angels of belief become real. All Won- 
derland is her empire, and sitting in the radiance 
of the day and of her joy, she reigns a queen 
with the shaft of a sunbeam for her scepter. 

And thus her growth begins. A door has been 
opened and she has seen the blooming roses in 
the garden beyond ; a hillock has been mounted 
and she has glimpsed the wondrous peaks of the 
far-off hills. It will still be growth for her when 
she realizes the beautiful fact that the floating 
thistle-down, new to her, is the old age of a lovely 
plant, and again she will feel the upHft that 
comes of acquirement, the joy of conquest, the 
sweetness of comprehending things and of being 
in sympathy with something that is beautiful. 

There are some of us, learning to spell out the 
language of nature, who may remember the ab- 
solute joy that possessed us when first we sensed 
the majesty and the growing of trees, the patient 



OVER THE HILLTOPS. 1 5 

unfurling of the young leaf banners, the putting 
forth of new twigs, the renewal of life, the 
mighty effort to attain symmetry and the far-off 
beckoning skies, the fine adjustment within the 
environment of earth and sky. No one forgets 
the first conception of an idea. Then is a mighty 
moment that contains for us the annunciation of 
some great fact in nature or in life. 

I remember once standing on the sloping 
sward of a beautiful estate in Ireland and looking 
at the ripple of a pebbled river and the eternal 
calm of the blue sky through a network of deli- 
cately traced marble columns that knit overhead 
in the multitudinous beauty of arches of solid 
masonry. It was the ruined, crumbling remem- 
brance of an old Franciscan abbey. A tangle of 
purple-fruited brambles filled the shady spaces of 
the cool cloisters; an Irish ivy twisted itself in the 
slender columns; the deep brittle blue luminosity 
of a June sky bending over the fairest country in 
the world was picked out by the flawless perfec- 
tion of those beautiful arches. It came on me 
with the lightning flash that an arch of masonry 
is the most perfect work of man's hand. It is 
cathedral and Pantheon, capital and Coliseum. 
You may look at things half a lifetime and not 
see them at all; but on the day you realize their 
beauty, their fitness and proportion, their use, 
then they become yours. Gape and gawk 
through a cathedral, wondering at its height and 
space; when you feel the spirit of its architecture, 
then it is your sanctuary. When you realize the 



1 6 OVER THE HILLTOPS. 

growing trees, then the forest is your temple, 
with the sky for its dome. Then indeed, West- 
minster may become an epic, and that old Fran- 
ciscan abbey a religion. 

Some heathens have had the belief that the sky 
was the face of a god. This is beautiful enough 
even for us of to-day, who are still heathens to 
many of the beauties of God's worlds. You may 
have gone on for years walking down the May 
mornings, glad, alert, with the spring-time of 
health and strength leaping in your heels and 
heart, and tugging at your muscles, but still giv- 
ing no real thought to anything of nature about 
you, until, as in a flash, your soul, like a dove, 
seemed to put forth white wings and cleave the 
blue. How was it you had missed being con- 
scious of it for so long — coming and going and 
never until nov^^ comprehending with this new, 
sudden, subtle sympathy the eternal calm and 
tenderness of the sky? It bends over like the 
Madonna. You might pray to it ; your loosed 
soul might swim in it. Its beauty elates you and 
fills your senses, and you feel to have gained 
something. The world is suddenly grown fairer 
— you own more of it. Are you tired? Here 
is something to rest you. Is earth dull? Look 
up. Would your eyes grovel on something at 
your feet? Look up. It is the countenance of 
God in the infinite glory of the sky that meets 
your gaze and answers your plaint with a bene- 
diction. 

A stage of growth is when we discover some 



OVER THE HILLTOPS. 1 7 

God-like beauty, some tender human sweetness 
in the heart of a friend. The negro washer- 
woman toihng at her tubs may give you this 
thrill of discovery. You find she has something 
great in her — something that you may lack — a 
patient endurance of poverty, say; a fine persist- 
ence to wash her clothes white as snow. She is 
a hero at her trade, and when you discover or 
realize the hero-heart of her it ought to make you 
better at your trade. Every time you discover 
or sense some beauty in life, you burst a bond 
that holds you to earth. You are that much 
freer to be fine. You rule. When you find 
something beautiful in your own trade, you are 
growing. Your trade may be scrubbing, or driv- 
ing a cart, or studying a school-girl's books, or 
mending a gown ; but when you take joy in 
working your best — in seeing some other made 
happy because you are doing your best — then 
you may hold up your head and walk the earth 
like a goddess. 

A girl at home goes on thoughtlessly accept- 
ing the services of her mother. She sees the 
mother mending, and tending the home fires, sees 
her always willing and never wearied, always 
sinking self, and it seems all right and natural. 
There is no hint of the missed joys from her pa- 
tient life, no plaint of the dull evenings at home, 
no whispered regret for the music and the books, 
the flowers and the companionship that are de- 
nied her. But some day, often too late, there 
comes to the daughter the divine moment of 



OVER THE HILLTOPS. 

The pathetic patience, the n^ute 
endurance, the infinite tenderness, the dumb self- 
abnegation, the long self-sacrifice, the immolated 
saint of motherhood, take shape like a figure on 
the bleak height of Calvary. First Christ, and 
then a mother! The moment and the passion 
of a revelation like this hurts, but it leaves you 
kinder, tenderer, sweeter. 

It makes no difference where you are placed 
in life, you are intended to look up and to grow, 
to widen and radiate. The warrior in you must 
fight; the hero in you must protect and save. 
May be there is just a carpenter in you, or a 
seamstress, or a patient knitter by a home fire, 
but the beauty is there all the same. You must 
grow to the sun, to the stars, to the far-off skies. 
To do and to be, you have no need to concern 
yourself about others, to take part in your neigh- 
bor's squabblings. Think of yourself. The in- 
dividual *'you" is of the first account, and that 
must be so fine and so strong, so distinct, and in 
such sharp outline that you will be a cameo cut in 
the beautiful amber of life. The true man or 
woman cannot be gnat-bitten by any one's exam- 
ple or the fear of any one's comment or sneer. It 
is a puny soul that totters and is afraid to stand 
alone and send out its own cry. You bare yourself 
not to the world but to God. You must show 
him your heart, not its husk. How much truth is 
there in you? What do you feel when you read 
Shakespeare? When you meet a hero? When 
you see anguish or sorrow or pain hurrying to 



OVER THE HILLTOPS. I9 

some neighbor of yours? When the poem touches 
your heart it touches the poet in you ; when the 
actor makes you spring in the air and cry hurrah, 
it is because he has touched that genius in you. 

A country boy going to school came crying to 
me one day that all his books Avere old to him. 
*'When I read them, I find I know them," he 
said. It was the meeting of emperors. He was 
royal to all great truths. Until we meet them so, 
they are not truths for us. I am dumb for you 
unless you know you might have said this that 
I say. I am dead for you unless you might feel 
the thrill of my sorrow or my passion. 

In a remote country village, who has not been 
touched by the spectacle of life? You come there 
from the big city that is an artery of the world, 
and you find out in the village what little things 
go to make up life. The people are like invalids 
who pass life sitting by a window and are con- 
strained to amuse themselves with little thines. 
Which woman rode in which buggy ; how this one 
has made over her perennial gown ; Avho shook 
hands with the visitor and who did not ; the mak- 
ing of preserves; the weights of new babies. But 
this is not the place to sneer; nay, this is the 
place to learn how large is the world, what room 
there is to grow, what need there is to set your 
hopes and aims on the higher things. 

Sometimes in the big city you meet a vv^oman 
who is bound up in herself. It is not a compact 
between herself and God. She owns no Jacob's 
ladder traversed by the beautiful angels of good 



20 OVER THE HILLTOPS, 

deeds, but she lives, works, thinks only for her 
own body, her own vanity, her own comfort. All 
the world is incidental to her affairs, to the satis- 
faction of her vanity. When she goes to bed at 
night she has not done one single act for the hap- 
piness of another. She has no plans to sweeten 
life for others. She would not pass the fare of 
an old man in the street car, nor think of denying 
herself a plume on her bonnet to succor a starv- 
ing family. What does she live for — pinioned 
to pride and self-conceit, tethered to the earth, 
meeting no royal ones, stirred by no fine senti- 
ments? I would not have you change places 
with such a one if she dwelt in a castle of Castile. 
Never be ashamed of shedding a tear; never be 
ashamed of jumping out of yourself into the 
armor of a knight ; never be ashamed to be seen 
lifting a beggar over the street ; never despair of 
meeting an emperor. 

Some people are good by rule because they 
cannot get along in decent society otherwise. 
Some go to church simply because it is Sunday. 
You can't keep that up. You find yourself out, 
and you know that God has found you out. But 
you must go to church or to the temple of the 
woods to find out if the germ of religion is in 
you. Do you thrill at the singing, at the dome, 
at the solemn cry of the litany; does some peace 
come into you and make tranquil your hour? 
Then it is in you to grow. You may not grow 
dogmas, but you will grow starward and skyward. 

Sum up your day. What did you do in it; 



OVER THE HILLTOPS. 21 

does it leave ashes in your teeth, or the fragrance 
of violets? You cannot afford to waste life on its 
curl papers, to dawdle along talking of puddings 
and preserves. What is the book I read to me 
unless it teaches me something — how to feel, 
how to smile, how to weep? I must be sure a 
thing holds nothing good for me and then I must 
cast it aside. I cannot waste time on nothing. I 
must live, must be amused, must see the world, 
must be made better. I cannot waste life, love, 
energy, ambition, on the trivial soul, the barren 
soil, the soulless form. Life is precious when it 
makes us laugh, weep, moan, act, cry, hurrah; 
not when it permits us to dream in a sort of 
senseless calm. Let me sail, let me be seasick, 
let me be wrecked, let me have this turmoil of 
living; how can the rest and security of the Rock 
of Ages be sweet to me, how shall I clasp it, 
unless I have come out of the tempest? 

You must not be afraid of anything save the 
useless. A useless woman, making no one the 
finer for her being, giving no ohe a zest for com- 
panionship of her, sweetening the soul of no 
one, is like a thing made of ashes. When the true 
one comes along she will crumble as an old dead 
body might, feeling for the first time in a thou- 
sand years the live air. I have often seen a 
woman crumble under this stress. In the council, 
in the association, in the home gathering, what 
she is and why she is there is plain to all eyes. 

Sometimes a woman will have nothing to do 
with a good work unless she can be president of 



22 OVER THE HILLTOPS. 

it. If it makes any difference to you where ^ou 
sit, be careful; you are turning to ashes, and the 
draft from the outer world will blow you away. 
Do n't think about yourself, think about the sky; 
let all the sweet sap and juices of your deep 
humanity leap upward to it. When I com.e into 
the council of women who are talking and work- 
ing for the good of others, does it make an}^ 
difference whether my voice is heard? I can keep 
still and, if I am the finest nature there, I can 
still dominate that meeting. Do I care who 
speaks; who is leader? To follow is just as fine; 
to keep silent is just as grand. Why do you go 
to your club? Is it to laud yourself; is it to gorge 
yourself on the fat of leadership ; is it to advertise 
yourself as good as your neighbor? Then you 
are no worthy member. The pettiness of you 
makes you an outlaw. Cleaner, finer souls ought 
to blackball you. Search yourself and find out 
why you do a thing, not why your neighbor 
does it. 

But if you go there for growth, if you forget 
yourself in the work, then, though you sit on a 
footstool in the dingiest corner, you are a queen, 
and the scepter of your influence is all magical 
and fine. 

Some women never get tired of talking about 
themselves ; they never get enough praise. This 
is dangerous and dwarfing. To your child, to 
your mother, to your husband, you may talk 
''I.'* To your God you may talk nothing else. 
But this is all. To grow finely is to forget self. 



OVER THE HILLTOPS. 23 

In the heat and passion of battle the soldier 
forgets that the enemy's bullet may pierce his 
heart. He becomes a hero because the bonds 
that hold him to earth are snapped asunder. 
He becomes great because he forgets everything 
in the passion of winning. His arm Is the in- 
strument. It is only when you are carried out 
of yourself that you really advance in a path 
that you cannot retrace. To make some one else 
content with life, to make the way easier for 
some one else, to cause a child to smile, to rest 
an old woman of her burden, to right a wrong, 
to tell a fine truth, to give a flower, to ease an 
ailing one, these are the ways of growth. This is 
the way to make life beautiful. It is not neces- 
sary to jump a continent or cross an ocean. 
Often you need not span a gutter. Life and be- 
ing and doing begin at home. You can't grow 
from the outward in. You expand like the 
breath of incense in a cathedral, like the perfume 
of a flower in a garden. You must unfold petal by 
petal until your sweetness permeates all space. 

And now let us hurry onward. Surely over 
this hill-top we shall see the tent of home. Let 
us climb on, patient hearts. Over this nearer 
hilltop we see only another higher still, and be- 
yond that another higher still, white with eternal 
snows. But going on, we train our lungs to 
breathe a thinner air, and upon us shines the re- 
flected whiteness of the snows. Some day, all 
at once, like a sunrise in the Alps, the beauty of 
this climbing seizes on us. We are glad to be 



24 OVER THE HILLTOPS. 

mountaineers and to shout at each other from the 
hilltops. And then it is no longer strife. The 
soul grows like an Easter lily. The heartache is 
over. The skies only — the far-off skies — are 
above you. You lift your soul, and on this 
mountain height of fine endeavor, with rough- 
ened hands and wearied heart, you still may cry, 
* ' I have won I ' ' 



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